Examples of intuition in human life. What is intuition and how important is it in a person’s life? Myths about intuition
Someone said that intuition is just life experience processed by the subconscious and brought into consciousness. Sometimes this may be true, but there are cases when intuition (mine) takes on (in my eyes) a truly mystical character. Firstly, I have a very good sense of troubles affecting me and my loved ones, and I can often tell what exactly will happen and where exactly it will happen.
It all started when, in my first year of university, I suddenly began to feel the urge to go home during classes (nobody’s laughing, I’m serious). I served a sentence until the end, rushed home - and there the stove was overfed - there would have been a fire. Since then I have listened to my intuition (and when I don’t listen, I always regret it). Most shining example- when my intuition saved my life and my friend’s (at least my health).
Spring, we walked down the street. I feel like I need to go to the other side and go there, I tell my friend about this. He tells me that spring has finally arrived and he wants to walk in the sun (the other side was in the shade). We walked, my anxiety grew stronger, I offered him two more times, he refused. When the feeling got really strong, I stopped. He too, see why I got up. At that moment, about two meters from us, right along the course of our movement, a melted block of ice fell from the roof. Its mass, judging by the impact, would have been enough to, if not kill us, then definitely send us to intensive care. The friend immediately, without a word, crossed to the other side.
There were many such cases (maybe slightly less serious). Intuition doesn’t always tell me (maybe I don’t always hear it), but if it gives a signal, I’m never wrong.
Secondly, I used to have a very good sense of who was calling whom on the phone. There was no need for any caller ID. Now the skill has somehow disappeared.
Another funny incident from life - definitely some kind of mysticism. I was walking the dog at night, and as luck would have it, I had also watched “Children of the Corn” before (I’m not impressionable in this regard - don’t think so, but it also left an imprint). It's three o'clock, just after four. It’s winter, not a soul on the street, absolute silence. There is a dense layer of clouds in the sky, and only in the middle do they turn into ripples, from which the pale moon can barely be seen. I also thought that the picture was like something out of a classic horror movie. Suddenly the wind begins to blow, not very much, but at the same time raising a light snowstorm and creating an unpleasant hiss. The dog stands up, freezes, looks to the side. I see that the hair on the back of her neck stands on end - a sign of her aggressiveness. She starts barking and growling, I look - and there’s no one there at all, it’s empty. Here is my dog, of whom all the dogs in the area were afraid (no joke - there was a Caucasian Shepherd Dog, she perceived other dogs as wolves, with all that that implies), who herself was never afraid of anything (except for Masha and me, when angry), who really loved to walk (I had to drag her home by force), turns towards the house and begins to tear at the leash with all my strength so that I run after her so as not to fall. That's when I started to feel uneasy. He flew into the house, turned on the lights everywhere and drank tea for a long time...
The Essence of Intuition
The word Intuition comes from Late Latin intuition- contemplation, from lat. intueor - I'm looking closely.
Usually, intuition is understood as a sudden insight, a sudden solution to a question - everything that is characterized by the general beliefs of clarity and indisputability of understanding. When they say: “has a highly developed intuition,” they mean that such a person, usually a highly qualified specialist in the subject, can reason, demonstrating a deep understanding of the essence of the subject, without thinking at that moment.
A feeling of clear indisputability characterizes all manifestations of intuition and gives rise to the feeling that this is something introduced with the stamp of Truth because there was literally nothing before, and after that, here it is: striking the imagination, making one shout “eureka” and rejoice as a gift from the outside.
R. Descartes stated:
“By intuition I do not mean faith in the wavering evidence of the senses, or the deceptive judgment of a disordered imagination, but the concept of a clear and attentive mind, so simple and distinct that it leaves no doubt that we are thinking, or that the same thing , a strong concept of a clear and attentive mind, generated only by the natural light of reason and, thanks to its simplicity, more certain than deduction itself ... ".
There are known states that manifest themselves in a dream or in reality on the verge of hallucinations (when it is so easy to arouse associations that are not directly related to the current context of thinking), when acute sensation understanding of everything in the world, the feeling that all the secrets in the world are now understood, accompanied by joyful euphoria. But when you try to concretize at least some knowledge, or remember what exactly you managed to understand, nothing happens, everything slips away as if nothing had happened. It is clear that nothing happened, that all the secrets of the universe did not suddenly appear in the head, but there was only the very feeling of understanding in its pure form, unencumbered by anything specific. In the same way, there is a feeling of simply joy when it is not clear where it comes from or depression. These feelings arise as a result of the activity of our internal reception: detection of words “good”, “bad”, “new”, “error”, “confidence”. These feelings have the ability to color everything that is perceived and thought at that moment. There can be a lot of gradations of these feelings and they are very individual, but the most common of them are inherent in almost everyone, giving rise to familiar emotions.
In the materials Intellectual mechanisms of the psyche:
...the term “understanding” introduces difficulties into the problem by the fact that it is too general for each of the areas where this problem is specified. From the position of certain specialists, one term denotes different applications of the subjective image-symbol “understanding” and this leads to contradictions when moving to a more general framework.
The psychophysiological analogue of such an image is, perhaps, a state of certainty. Behavior is impossible outside a certain context a. A stimulus causes a response in a context corresponding to existing conditions. Here, experience has already developed matrices of possible solutions - answers in various circumstances.
Signs of existing conditions in some cases can excite contexts of mutually exclusive reactions that compete in meaningfulness, and, more precisely, this can happen when perceived signs are not enough to excite a certain context (the ability to recognize is given by experience). In this case, all the consequences of misunderstanding the situation are observed. If the situation is unambiguous, then anticipatory excitations from anticipatory expectations of a stimulus in an established context will not give a forecast consistent with accumulated experience.
Sufficiently confident, unambiguous forecasts give a feeling of certainty and understanding. In this case, following the general mechanism, a detector of recognition of a specific situation and a detector of general certainty should be formed. In other cases, when the context is uncertain or contradictory, error detectors should be formed that record what is common in all ensembles (including significance) characteristic of uncertainty.
Many chains of action programs formed by experience are carried out simultaneously: we breathe, walk, wave our arms, adjust our walking depending on the characteristics of the path, and think about something at the same time (see these mechanisms of mental phenomena). But the vast majority active processes the brain is not realized (the point of awareness or the focus of attention is located only in one of such processes), and if the result of predictive activity in one of them exceeds the significance and novelty of the state of the conscious process, then the focus of attention moves there, the previously unconscious is realized already at the stage ready important result (see Mechanism of the orienting reflex) - the effect of insight.
Mental automatisms are organized exactly like the simultaneous operation of many programs of muscular actions. That is why we find it difficult to say exactly how our thought developed: many intermediate activities were not consciously realized and therefore did not leave a trace in subjective memory. But the chains of mental activities were worked out sequentially, exactly like the chains of the sequence of action phases in muscle reactions, with the focus of conscious attention moving from one most relevant phase to another most relevant one (maximum novelty and significance). And if relevance appeared only after something very significant was discovered by this chain, then comprehension of this particular activity arises - a thought appearing as if from nowhere (see What is a thought?).
Instant understanding of the situation has just such an implementation mechanism. This is one of the manifestations of intuition. It is clear that if something has not been previously represented by life experience, then it will not be recognized. Or it will be recognized falsely (see Illusions of perception).
There is an opinion that a person unfamiliar with a subject can suggest a valuable idea to a specialist. This is the opinion of laymen who have little understanding of the complexity of modern subject specialization. Something does not come from nothing. In very general terms, a layman can suggest just as effectively as the suggestive flames of a fire or the waves of the sea or the random patterns of cracks in plaster. All these generators of stimuli for ideas were used by Leonardo da Vinci.
Intuition also manifests itself in the predictive mechanisms of the brain. It is they that lead to insights when, in the as yet unconscious activity of the brain, with the appearance of some additional elements in the perception and concretization of the context in the area of unconscious activity, an already existing version of the possible development of an idea (events) is suddenly activated, which turns out to be quite significant ( see Anticipatory excitation
or the essence of the forecast). This type of intuition depends even more on individual life experience because, in addition to the processes of recognizing the situation itself, a delicate balance of finding an acceptable option in the research context of the psyche is also involved (see Motivation).
This is how the French mathematician Jean Dieudonne describes the manifestations and origins of intuition in Abstraction and Mathematical Intuition
...how is proof invented? This process was perfectly described by A. Poincaré in his now famous pages: imagination provides a mathematician facing a problem with many possible combinations known facts, we have theories, but most of them lead nowhere. If by chance a mathematician finds the right path, then they say that he has good intuition, which successfully guided him.
... No one, of course, thinks to deny that the source of basic mathematical concepts, such as number or space, is sensory experience. Starting from about 12 years old, according to professional psychologists, small natural numbers or simple spatial relations(position, magnitude, etc.) can be considered as stable, experience-based concepts inherent in all normal people and forming the substrate of corresponding mathematical concepts.
... there are reasons related to historical development mathematicians, according to whom they began to impose requirements on concepts that arose mainly from experience that do not have such an origin at all, and which act as axioms imposed on concepts chosen as basic. After this, naturally, there is nothing surprising, although it confused people at one time, that the sensory intuition of the objects in question, even real numbers, either in some cases did not exist at all, or was insufficient and deceptive.
... No one can say that he has an intuition of the truth or falsity of Fermat's theorem. Sometimes the intuition one has about certain concepts, starting with axioms, gives the idea of a proof. A classic example is Bolzano's theorem, which states that a continuous function cannot change sign without becoming zero. There is a fairly clear geometric intuition here that gives the idea of the proof. If we try to prove Jordan’s theorem*, which is also intuitively obvious, it turns out that intuition here is deceptive. There are also completely unintuitive objects, classical monsters: the Peano curve, the Brouwer continuum, which is the common boundary of three flat regions, the Antoine ring, which is a completely discontinuous set, although there is a curve that cannot be deformed into a point without intersecting this ring. By the way, in order not to go into such distant areas, one can cite such examples of false intuition as the famous drawing, with the help of which they prove that every triangle is isosceles. If you make a drawing so that the point of intersection of the perpendicular to the middle of the side and the bisector of the opposite angle is inside the triangle (which is obviously impossible), it is easy to show that the triangle is isosceles. This example well illustrates the fact that the spatial intuition generated in us by elementary geometry can be deceptive.
Therefore, you should not let yourself be deceived. Even for concepts that seem close to sensory intuition, the corresponding mathematical objects are, in essence, very different from what we think of them. This fact is the source of great surprise among most 19th-century mathematicians, who believed that the concepts they associated with real numbers, are self-evident and cannot lead to extravagant results like the Peano curve.
We are no longer surprised by such phenomena. Starting from the end of the 16th - 17th centuries, mathematicians destroyed the classical idea of number and space and began to explore objects that did not have any sensory equivalent. No one has ever seen a group, a ring, a body, a module. The geometries of Lobachevsky, Riemann and all other geometries, p-adic numbers*, differentiable manifolds were created by mathematicians. How can we talk about intuition for these objects? The answer to this question is, of course, difficult to formulate, since we're talking about about completely subjective phenomena. Each mathematician creates an individual mental image for himself, which is in some way incomparable with the corresponding images of thoughts of others.
First, let us note a common and completely banal point of view: the intuition of a mathematical object gradually develops and depends primarily on the degree of familiarity with this object. What does a mathematician do when he is faced with a problem that is completely new to him, which he has never studied and on which he is just beginning to work? Most often, he either does not know at all what questions to ask, or asks absurd questions.
... while studying the issue, they gradually begin to get comfortable in an unfamiliar country; getting used to it, they come to the ability to guess what should happen when they encounter a given mathematical object, and what tool needs to be used to study it. The ridiculous mistakes made at the beginning gradually stop. Eventually you develop a certain habit of the topic and, with luck, you manage to pose a problem and solve it.
... I will devote the rest of the talk to another type of mathematical intuition, namely what I would call transfer of intuition. I consider this type of intuition to be basic and one of the most important sources mathematical development.
... They are separated only by language, but it also provides enormous help, since it allows at each moment to more or less accurately find similar intuitively familiar situations and transfer intuition from these situations to more complex cases. This is not obvious and serious precautions must often be taken...
... In such cases there is something that pushes us to transfer ideas to another mathematical theory. But, so to speak, there are great transfers that could be called mutations and which - there is no other way to say it - fall from the sky. One gets the impression that they are completely unprepared for anything.
... I have just shown how the intuition of linear algebra was carried over to algebraic topology and led to significant progress. The most remarkable thing is the return of this influence back. Mathematicians working on algebraic topology came to develop a whole series of methods that were special or seemingly special for their objects of study. We were talking about strictly topological questions until then. one fine day, algebraists Eilenberg and McLeney in 1942, Hopf and A. Cartai at about the same time noticed that similar situations occur in questions of pure algebra, and they came up with the idea of transferring to problems of pure algebra the methods successfully used by algebraic topologists; the success was absolutely extraordinary: homological algebra was a rebound from the intuition of pure algebraic topologists.
... the examples given are, in spite of everything, the simplest. To describe the modern turbulence of ideas, one would have to talk about large structures where not one or two, but half a dozen intuitions merge.
... the progress of intuition, contrary to what one might suppose, goes hand in hand with the progress of abstraction. The more abstract a phenomenon is, the more it enriches intuition. Why? Because abstraction eliminates everything irrelevant from theory. If you introduce abstraction skillfully and are guided by your gut (intuition, if you will), then you discard irrelevant relationships. What's left? What's left is a skeleton, and in that skeleton you sometimes find structures that you otherwise wouldn't be able to see. If you did not introduce abstraction, the trees would obscure the forest from you, the details would prevent you from seeing the essential.
Esoteric ideas about intuition, of course, do not explain anything, but only refer to some transpersonal source of true knowledge external to a person. Despite the many absurd inconsistencies that immediately appear with any attempt to apply such an assumption, this idea is very tenacious precisely because intuition is accompanied by an “inexplicable” feeling of clear certainty, the truth of what is suddenly understood. What was explained above was quite rationally explained by specific mechanisms of mental phenomena. Of course, this very confidence in the truth of one person may completely differ from the essence of what another person understands, which leads to many disagreements in esoteric teachings and differences in religions (See Differences in religious theories, differences between science and religion).
These ideas are manifested not only in religious, but also in general professional activity. So, in The Essence of Intuition in Investigative and Judicial Practice:
... Announcing real world irrational flow subjective experiences, in which nothing definite can be found, intuitionists come to the conclusion that it is impossible to understand the world through the senses and mental activity. This preaching of mysticism, alien to science, was widely accepted by bourgeois lawyers to justify lawlessness and judicial arbitrariness. A number of works contain ambiguous arguments that actually focus on the priority of the subjective impressions of the investigator and the judge.
... The process of thinking is not only a set of detailed conclusions. Along with full logical forms, a person uses such judgments that are accepted in an abbreviated form, while others are completely dropped, omitted, as long known, tested by experience, proven by practice or established by some branch of knowledge. As a result, the resulting conclusion seems disconnected, isolated and appears as pure, unconditional guesswork.
I. P. Pavlov accurately noticed this pattern. Intuition, he said, “should be understood” that “a person remembers the final, but the entire path that he approached, prepared, he did not calculate for this moment.” In fact, the result obtained was prepared by the previous thought process, during which the necessary ones were actualized knowledge, and if the decision comes from the first step, it means that the necessary knowledge was updated immediately, due to the fact that the person’s readiness of experience and knowledge was high. Thus, behind the ability to intuitively guess the truth are experience, knowledge, active mental activity, which allow one to suddenly, as it were, correctly resolve a question, understand a complex phenomenon, and predict the further course of events.
Of course, a lot depends on what problem solver can bring imagination, observation, criticality, creative interest and other intellectual qualities.
In view of the above, it is possible to speak about the immediacy of intuitive knowledge only conditionally, for it is mediated and conditioned by all the previous experience of man and humanity. Stocks of knowledge and life observations, knowledge of ways to solve various cognitive problems do not represent a chaotic accumulation. In the mind of the researcher, they are systematized and linked by threads of associations. The more mental connections he has, the richer and more versatile his understanding of the world. The more often these connections were used, the less effort he needed to correctly solve emerging problems.
With intuition, the “deep archives” of human memory are used on instructions from the intellect. Mental actions, like motor operations, as a result of repeated repetition tend to be shortened, automated, escaping self-observation. As improvement occurs, the reasoning process is curtailed. Thinking through all intermediate steps of the decision becomes easier; Direct connections begin to emerge between the main elements of the task. Based on a guess, the researcher begins to more and more often solve these problems correctly, without performing analytical work every time and without realizing the way to solve them. Intuition is developed on this basis.
I.M. Sechenov emphasized its similarity to a highly habitual movement that has become automatic, where the mechanism of the learning process is hidden by the speed and ease of action. “This analogy,” he concludes, “is so complete that I do not hesitate to affirm their psychological unambiguity.”
Additionally:
When it comes to intuition, the trading community is divided into two camps. Some believe that intuition in trading is very important and is almost the main decision-making mechanism, while others do not take intuition seriously and even ridicule intuitive traders. Which of them is right and is there a golden mean in this matter? What is intuition and does it have the right to participate in stock trading? Let's try to figure it out.
Intuition in trading– what is it?
When it comes to defining intuition? As a phenomenon in principle, even scientists have difficulty. The thing is that intuition is a little-studied mechanism that still leaves specialists with many questions. At the same time, today not a single researcher denies that intuition has a place and with its help you can quickly make the right decisions.
The veil of secrecy was lifted a little by the research of D. Kahneman and his colleagues, who found that the brain has two decision-making mechanisms, conventionally called System 1 and System 2. System 1 is responsible for quick, intuitive conclusions and decisions that do not require mental effort, while System 2 is responsible for making logical conclusions and making informed, deliberate decisions. Both mechanisms are necessary for normal human functioning, therefore intuition is an important part of a person’s personality. However, is it applicable in trading?
“Intuition is not a trifle. This is data processing so fast that the mind does not perceive it.” This is what a character in a popular television series said, and scientific research partially confirm this statement. In most cases, a person owes his experience to making quick intuitive decisions on a particular issue or situation. It's just that when faced with a situation that has arisen many times before, our minds don't waste time on another one. logical analysis, but acts according to a familiar pattern and passes the decision to System 1. Experienced traders sometimes make intuitive conclusions about the market or decisions about entering a trade as quickly and automatically as ordinary person the process of brushing teeth or eating.
The benefits of intuitive trading solutions
The main advantage of trading by intuition is the speed of decision making. Guided by intuition, a trader spends much less time and effort analyzing the situation. Of course, this is not always an advantage, because if a trader is a beginner, his intuition can deceive him. On the other hand, for experienced traders, intuitive solutions are a great way to save time without losing efficiency.
The second advantage is that a trader who listens to his intuition is more confident. Although the analysis and application of successful strategies can produce positive results on their own, when they are also supported by an intuitive decision, a trader learns to truly feel the market.
Intuition: possible pitfalls
Although intuition is a valuable tool, it is still imperfect. Below are the main traps that a trader guided by intuition can fall into.
- Insufficient experience.
From research it is clear that intuition works well and with a minimum of errors if a person has enough knowledge and experience in the field. When experience and knowledge are insufficient, intuition can malfunction and lead to serious mistakes. Therefore, before practicing intuitive trading, it is worthwhile to undergo training at the Alexander Purnov School of Trading and practice the acquired skills in real trading. - Extremes.
Intuition is useful, but if you make it the main mechanism for making decisions, you can make mistakes. The most successful traders are those who skillfully combine analytical techniques and an intuitive approach, and not those who go to extremes, completely rejecting one or the other. - Intuition = emotion.
Those who are of the opinion that the intuitive approach is an emotional approach are greatly mistaken. This is often the main reason why intuition is considered a frivolous approach. In fact, intuition has little to do with emotions, because in order to hear its voice, a trader needs to be calm and focused, as with an analytical approach to trading.
To avoid the above mistakes, it is worth having a balanced view of trading. Intuition in trading is not a pseudoscientific approach that does not bring benefits, but it is not a panacea for all problems.
Many traders ask, is it possible to do without intuition in trading? Yes, it's possible. And many successful traders who are guided exclusively by rational methods in making decisions will confirm this fact. But there are many very successful world-famous traders who consider it necessary to listen to their intuition in trading.
Should you take your intuition into account and develop it? The decision is yours. And get more interesting articles on the topic of finance and you can after subscribing to our blog.
Relevance of the training topic.
It is difficult to list all the situations in which a person needs intuition to make a decision. We use intuition all the time: when choosing from several options, when searching for a job, to develop a project, to assess the reasons for the current situation, to make decisions on investments, when hiring employees and searching for partners, when negotiating, to create something new (discovering your business, etc.). Life itself requires us to be able to be in the right place at the right time, to “automatically” choose the best option.
The goal of intuition training is to develop intuitive abilities, as well as master the skill of intuitive decision-making. Intuition training is a product that is rarely found on the business education market, but there is every reason to believe that it is in demand by managers. This is due to the increase in modern factors such as stress, uncertainty when making decisions, an increase in information flows and a simultaneous increase in time shortage. To make decisions and operate effectively in such conditions, it is necessary to turn to mental reserves that are practically not used in the traditional rational approach to management. These reserves are located in the realm of the unconscious. If managers discover such a cognitive tool as intuition and learn to use it, they will thereby receive an additional reserve for insuring risks when making decisions.
In 2002, an event occurred that surprised the whole world. For the first time Nobel Prize in economics was awarded not to an economist, but to a psychologist - . In his books “Psychology of Forecasting”, “Decision Making under Uncertainty”, he experimentally proved that decisions in the field of economics are made by people not on a rational, but on an emotional and intuitive level.
II. Specific examples using intuition.
A woman, the head of a trading company, told the following story. One day, when she was getting ready for work in the morning, the idea occurred to her that she needed to remind the team at her store to be more attentive in order to prevent theft of goods. The manager decided to hold a small team meeting for this purpose (at the same time to discuss a number of other pending issues). However, then the phone rang and she was informed that she needed to go to her partner’s office. Thus, urgent matters meant that she only got to the store in the afternoon. And then her employees reported the theft, which had already occurred in the first half of the day!
When she later reflected on what had happened, she came to the conclusion that she should have immediately acted on the intuition she had received. If she had at least called the store in the morning and simply reminded her to be vigilant, then, most likely, the theft could have been avoided.
One of the most common examples of using intuition is solving a problem such as choosing a profession. Every person goes through this intuitive choice. When choosing a profession, a young person has no guarantee that the acquired qualification will bring him success in the future. When applying for a job, the question of what influenced the choice of profession is one of the most informative. You can hear in the candidates' answers different options answers: that it was the parents’ decision, that my sister successfully graduated from the same institute, that the decision was made “for company” with friends, that this profession promised guaranteed income or social prestige, etc. Such “external” choices in the vast majority of cases lead to the fact that a person does not like his profession and does not achieve success in it.
One of the most important examples of using intuition is goal setting. Every leader sets goals, which then become goals for many people, sometimes a few people, sometimes millions. It is through the power of a set goal that a leader is able to unite and rally his team around him. Setting goals is an intuitive process. Along with rational information, when choosing a goal, a leader must be guided by his intuition, otherwise the set goal will not have motivating power. Leaders are known to “infect” other people with their own goals. The unifying power of a goal directly depends on the belief in it of the leader himself, the author of the idea or direction. This belief comes from the depths of his psyche, and if the goal does not resonate deeply in his soul, it loses its ability to lead people.
III. The problem of modern business people is a lack of self-confidence
Modern business people have such a feature as distrust of themselves. Often a person receives useful information from his intuition, but does not consider it important, “relevant”. Managers and businessmen are more inclined to listen to the advice of a specialist, request expert advice, read news reports on a topic of interest, rather than listen to the voice of their own Self. However, without the voice of their own Self, it is impossible to choose the right decision, to find the true path, because only you yourself know the path to your own well-being .
Modern business education has succeeded in developing rational skills in analyzing and obtaining external information. However, it seems to us that this is not enough. It is also necessary to develop a culture, self-understanding, and the ability to listen to internal signals.
A paradoxical situation is emerging. On the one hand, it is common knowledge that all successful businessmen have declared their intuition and its vital role in their success. Henry Mintzberg, a columnist for the Harvard Business Review, conducted a survey of high-ranking officials and businessmen, which revealed that many of them “...constantly solve problems that are too complex for rational thinking, using intuition" But at the same time, most modern managers and executives do not even know the basics of working with intuition.
IV. The relationship between intuition and rationality
Intuition is a tool of cognition, known since ancient times. It does not exclude the use of rational tools and does not at all imply neglect of rational knowledge. They have different tasks. The task of intuition is to show the direction and goals of an individual’s development, and the task of rational thinking is to select the means to achieve it. Rationality cannot indicate what will be good and what will be evil for a given individual. For example, every mother wishes the best for her child - this is a rational message. However, if the child follows the mother’s wishes in his choices, he has no chance of living his own life. He also cannot find out in which direction his implementation is located from books (even the smartest ones), from professors or bosses. He can only know this from his intuition. When an intuitive vision - a fleeting flash of an image - is given, you need to use all rational tools to build a strategy for achieving the goal indicated by intuition.
When comparing intuitive and rational knowledge, the comparison between a manager and a leader made by F. Lutens in the book “ Organizational behavior" Intuition is related to rational knowledge in the same way that the abilities of a leader are related to the abilities of a manager.
Characteristics of rational cognition | Characteristics of Intuition |
Administers | Carries out innovations |
Copy | Original |
Supports | Develops |
Focused on systems and structures | People oriented |
Relies on control | Inspires confidence |
Short term | Long term perspective |
Asks: how and when | Asks: what and why |
Looks at the totals | Looks to the future |
Imitates | Creates |
Accepts the status quo | Challenges the status quo |
good soldier | Individuality |
Does the job right | Does the right thing |
If we recall the famous saying A. Einstein that reason is the servant of intuition, then we can once again emphasize that the task of rationality is to tell a person how to do things correctly, and the task of intuition is to suggest how to do the right things.
V. Intuition as a skill of successful people
Intuition is the subtlest instrument of nature, designed to work for the benefit of man. Intuition has a number of limitations and strict rules for use, stimulation and development. All these rules are quite accessible to the modern leader. They can be mastered and successfully used to benefit yourself and your business.
Intuition is an ability found in most successful people. Biographies of great businessmen and leaders often mention the importance of intuition in making the most important decisions. Intuition is a means of saving a manager’s energy and time, because it allows him to make decisions in the shortest possible time when there is a lack of information.
Intuition training is a tradition in many foreign companies, such as Microsoft. Typically these are high technology companies where there is a need for constant creative development and change. As for Russia, the Forex company is now showing systematic attention to this topic, since the sphere of exchange trading is one of those where the skill of intuition is used every day. Academician Norbekov does a lot of work on the practical application of intuitive solutions.
VI. Intuition training in a thematic training grid
In the context of business education, intuition training is located between creativity training, self-regulation training and decision-making training. You can also see the close connection between intuition training and “” training. Intuition as a cognitive ability has its source unconscious, which in psychology is associated with emotional sphere personality.
Intuitive abilities are close to creative abilities, because... they have general mechanism- imaginative thinking. At the same time, intuition is directly related to physical and emotional self-regulation. Academician Norbekov considers health and emotional balance to be the most important conditions for the development of intuition. Intuitive thinking involves high sensitivity to signals in the area of emotional and physiological systems(organismic sensitivity).
Finally, intuition finds practical application in business in the decision-making process. Thus, intuition training is at the intersection of trainings emotional intelligence and management.
VII. New achievements in the problem of studying intuition
Ontopsychology has made a significant contribution to the study of intuition. This direction of modern psychology was developed by Professor Antonio Meneghetti (Italy). In the Russian Federation, ontopsychology is taught as a second higher education in St. Petersburg State University at the department of ontopsychology. (The author of the report is a student of this department.)
Ontopsychology allows you to use the following new tools for the development of intuition.
1. Reading semantic field.
Intuition must be distinguished from other signals, both external and internal. The semantic field is the impact of external influences on a person. These are emotions, images, thoughts, states that the subject experiences as his own, but they are brought into his consciousness from the outside. To use intuition, it is necessary to recognize information signals from the semantic field. During the training, participants learn to recognize and meaningfully qualify signals from the semantic field.
Let's consider an example of behavior that can lead to the development or, conversely, to regression of intuitive ability. A modern young man may be faced with a difficult choice: friends invite him to take part in a general party, his mother demands that he come to her family dinner, a friend asks him to accompany her to a nightclub, and his own inner voice says that he needs to be in alone. Depending on whether the young man is ready not to betray himself in a given situation, it will depend on whether he will be able to hear the voice of his intuition in the future.
Having listened to “other voices”: a sense of solidarity in the case of friends, a sense of duty in the case of his mother, a feeling of love in the case of a girl - he betrays himself and gradually loses the ability to hear the instructions of his own intuition. So, concession after concession, mistake after mistake, a person begins to get confused in the chorus of other people’s voices, but no longer hears his own. Thus, in order to enjoy the benefits of intuition, inner maturity, autonomy, and strength of personality are required.
2. Visceral susceptibility.
In psychology, it is accepted that intuitive thinking is different from logical thinking, but the “organ” responsible for intuitive thinking remains debated. Many authors believe that if logical thinking is carried out by the brain, then intuitive thinking is carried out by the heart. However, it would be more accurate to say that intuitive thinking is carried out by the integrity of a person’s being. Within the framework of ontopsychology, it has been clinically proven that the localization of holistic sensitivity in a person is the visceral zone. It includes the lungs, gastrointestinal tract, and genital area. In the literature, this zone is usually called the “second brain.” The visceral zone analyzes information coming to the subject from outside world, based on the combined reaction of the emotional and physiological spheres, i.e. holistically and organically.
To control intuition, the subject must have developed visceral sensitivity, since the reaction of the visceral zone is the primary undifferentiated reaction of the organism to the situation, from the point of view of favorability or danger for the subject.
In addition, the skill of synchronizing logical consciousness with visceral sensitivity is necessary, because this provides an optimal state, being in which the subject is able to predict events before the onset of consequences.
3. Existential ethics and hygiene.
The development of intuition presupposes a certain lifestyle. By retreating from one's own authenticity in favor of stereotypical choices dictated by complexes, fears, feelings of guilt, the desire to be like everyone else, etc., a person loses this gift. Conversely, by making authentic choices, a person increases his ability to intuition.
Intuition refers to “subtle” abilities that are difficult to develop and easy to lose due to incorrect actions. Therefore, an important element of the training content is the ethical (behavioral) component, which can be designated as “Hygiene of Intuition”. The training examines a lifestyle that allows you to increase your intuitive abilities.
VIII. Conclusions.
As conclusions, I would like to give a general nomenclature that makes up the ability to intuitive thinking.
Intuition as an ability and skill is divided into several components. These include:
- Creative thinking skill
- The ability to become aware of your emotional and physical condition,
- The skill of emotional and physical self-regulation,
- Forecasting skill
- Problem analysis skills
- Decision-making skills under conditions of uncertainty,
- Organic hygiene skills
- The skill of reading the semantic field,
- The skill of synchronizing logical consciousness with visceral sensitivity,
- The skill of recognizing and interpreting images.
- D. Kahneman, P. Slovik, A. Tversky. Decision making in uncertainty.
- L. Day. Practical intuition in business.
- L. Schultz. The language of intuition.
- A. Meneghetti. Psychology of a leader.
- A. Meneghetti. Textbook on ontopsychology.
- F. Lutens Organizational behavior
There is a lot in history interesting facts when intuition helped make discoveries and find solutions to complex problems. At the beginning of the book we already talked about the role of intuition in the creativity of great people. What techniques did the geniuses of art and science use when discovering new laws and looking for solutions? This will be discussed below.
About the benefits of classical music
Music is often a source of inspiration. For example, Walt Disney was very fond of the classics. He said that at the first sounds of his favorite works, associations arose in his head. Disney shared his experience in the animated film “Fantasia,” in which music is accompanied by a whole phantasmagoria of colors.
Listen to your favorite songs more often. For many artists, music gives birth to pictures in their heads, which they then embody on canvas. It is quite possible that music will help you find the answer to your question.
Ask the right questions
Albert Einstein spoke more than once about the importance of accurately formulating a question. “Every question already has an answer,” said the scientist. “By asking the question correctly, you can easily find the answer.”
Birth of associations
Associations can also arise under the influence of completely non-standard stimuli. For example, Leonardo da Vinci wrote in his Notes: “It is not difficult. just stop along the way and look at the marks on the wall, or the coals on the fire, or the clouds, or the dirt. You can find some absolutely amazing ideas there.”
The painter was also inspired by such things as the ringing of bells, in which “you can catch any name and any word that you can imagine.”
Each person has their own source of inspiration. Therefore, listen carefully to your inner voice: sometimes necessary thoughts come completely unexpectedly, and you will be surprised at the way they came into being!
Fashion for diaries
Many people used to keep diaries. Now this tradition is gradually dying out or being transformed (there are electronic diaries). Keeping notes is a great training for your intuition! Re-reading your notes, you can note a number of facts and accidents that no one paid attention to before. Meanwhile, subsequently such little things often play an important role.
Researcher Katerina Cox, analyzing many examples, noted that all famous people kept diaries. In their notes, they described their own lives in detail, as if foreseeing that they would become famous in the future. Isaac Newton, Thomas Jefferson, Johann Sebastian Bach and many other personalities kept personal diaries in which they described their feelings and thoughts. Later, many of the entries were published, and some became real works (for example, Leo Tolstoy used his diary to write a work). Why do all great people leave a legacy in the form of notes and diaries? It is assumed that regular journaling contributes to the development of outstanding intelligence.
Sleep is the answer to the question
Of course, dreams are a mystery of our subconscious. It seems that everything is clear here: with the help of dreams, the subconscious communicates with us. However, the way this happens is in itself surprising. And it’s even more surprising when in dreams we find a solution to a difficult problem!
This is, in fact, what happened to many scientists, among whom was the chemist August Kekule. One day he worked all day on a chemistry textbook and at the end he felt that he had accomplished nothing useful. The upset scientist thought that his thoughts were busy with the wrong things, and, pushing his work aside, he sat down by the fireplace. Peering into the flame, he thought about the benzene molecule, the structure of which was a mystery. Gradually the chemist sank into a state of half-sleep. And then. then what is now called a miracle happened.
Half asleep, Kekule saw strange, fantastic shapes in the flames of the hearth. Atoms flashed before his eyes, moving in long rows in the fire, writhing like snakes. Suddenly one of the snakes grabbed its tail and began to spin around quickly and furiously. The scientist woke up as if from a flash of lightning.
Kekule realized that he had a solution to the problem that was tormenting him. The subconscious itself suggested the answer, and the chemist spent the whole night working on the problem. In 1865, he stated that the benzene molecule consists of six carbon atoms. Surprisingly, the combination of atoms was strikingly reminiscent of the snake that the scientist had dreamed of.
Nightmares and sewing machines
Humanity owes another invention to sleep.
Inventor Elias Hove thought about creating a sewing machine, but to no avail. He couldn't do anything at all.
One night Hove saw bad dream: He was pursued by a gang of cannibals who intended to make a delicious dinner out of him. The horde of cannibals had almost caught up with him, and death was inevitable. The inventor even saw the spear tips of the cannibals, sparkling with a cold shine. Suddenly, Hove subconsciously noticed that each of the tips had a hole - the same as a sewing needle. At this moment, the inventor woke up, covered in cold sweat.
Hove later realized that the nightmare contained the answer to the task he had set for himself. After all, in order for the sewing machine to work, you only need to move the eye of the needle down to the very point. Hove followed the advice of his subconscious, and soon the first sewing machine appeared.